


every time we love, every time we give (it's christmas)

by zukoscomet



Series: roots and wings [8]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Steambabies - Freeform, i'm only gonna include the characters who have dialogue, otherwise it'd be so many
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28338228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zukoscomet/pseuds/zukoscomet
Summary: Katara and Zuko start their day a little different.Or: in the year 121 AG, it's Christmas morning with the Gaang on Ember Island. Chaos is inevitable.
Relationships: Aang/Toph Beifong, Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: roots and wings [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934692
Comments: 10
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought myself to be much of a Christmas fluff writer but I couldn't help this one once I'd thought of it. This is a two-parter and hopefully I'll finish the second part tomorrow, if not later today. 
> 
> Enjoy and have a happy Christmas!

Katara is surprised when she startles awake and her eyes open to find Zuko awake also. Perhaps not so unusual, were it not for the fact that he's still in bed beside her.

It’s even more of a surprise when it’s only him she feels under the covers with her.

“What time is it?” she grumbles as she rolls onto her back, eyes squinting at the steely white sunbeams streaming through the cracks in the shutters.

“Nearly eight.” The frenetic tone of his answer tells her that he’s been lying there awake for far too long, his innate need to rise with the dawn wrangling with the prescribed relaxation of the holidays - and also probably the same parental instinct screaming in her head that something was deeply wrong if she’d been allowed to lay in this long without interruption. 

First light was virtually never the thing that they began their days with, not even Zuko. Usually they’d be roused a little earlier than that to a dark room, with their three-year old son climbing over the foot of their bed, ducking beneath the covers, crawling up the mattress and squeezing himself between them before promptly going back to sleep. Katara would always drop back off with him but Zuko was rarely so fortunate, not with the sun so close to breaking the horizon, and he’d stopped trying many years ago. Instead, he would get up and meditate down in the gardens until he felt the prickle of the rising sun’s warmth on his skin. On the mornings that his eldest two came to join him for that rite of passage, which was most of them, they would set to sparring with flame or blade afterwards. Once that ritual hour had passed, the non-firebenders of the family would begin to stir, the rapping of Zuko’s knuckles on the doors of his younger girls’ rooms meeting with pained moans. Katara would be making similar sounds to their waterbending daughters as she forced herself up, Zuko returning in time to usher Kallik back to his own room to wash and dress him. By seven-thirty, they’d all be down at breakfast in their private hall, during which a scuffle or two would inevitably break out between the siblings over who got what from the buffet-style spread. By eight, they’d all be going on their separate ways; Kai and Izumi would drop their younger sisters off at school then head to the Academy, Katara would take Kallik for his half-day at nursery school before returning to start her day as Fire Lady, and Zuko’s secretary would arrive to brief him on the agenda as they walked to the Fire Lord’s first engagement.

Naturally things would be different today since they were away from the palace and the responsibilities (mostly) contained within its walls, but old habits die hard. Even on holidays, she and Zuko could still expect an early start.

Especially on this morning of all mornings, she remembered as the haze of sleep withdrew from her mind, because today was Christmas.

She sits up in bed immediately, as if the cornerstones of her normal morning routine might suddenly appear around her. They don’t. She only finds the familiar scene of their bedroom on Ember Island, dimly-lit in the winter sun - or at least it _would_ feel familiar, were it not still and quiet and completely vacant of anyone but them.

“Where are the kids?”

Zuko is still laid flat on his back when she turns to him, his eyes staring up into the sea blue canopy draped above their bed equally as confused as hers. “I’ve been waiting here for like nearly three hours for one of them to come in charging in and jump on me but they haven’t and I don’t know what to do. This isn’t how it works at all. This is _wrong_.”

“And you didn’t think to go in and _check_ on them?” Katara’s voice pitches up in panic. “Zuko, they could be up to all sorts, especially with all their cousins here, too. Or they might be sick. What if they’re sick?”

He grabs her wrist as she throws back the duvet and attempts to swivel her legs out of bed. “Of course I checked on them. They’re alive and healthy. Just asleep.”

“All of them?”

“All of them. And they’re all in their own beds, too.”

Katara is still disbelieving, especially with the addition of that last detail. She isn’t sure at precisely which one of their babies they’d relented on enforcing the _‘baby sleeps in the crib’_ rule, but certainly they’d given up on it before Lili and Kallik had arrived into the world. Their elder three had bed-hopped too - they still did on errant nights - but the younger pair had a particular penchant for it, if not with he and Katara then they’d happily jump in with either a vaguely disgruntled Izumi or the more defeatist Kai. She’d expected it most particularly last night, since they were sharing rooms to make space in the house for all twenty-two of them.

“Even Kallik?” she asks dubiously.

“Even Kallik.” Zuko confirms. “Kallik the more so, actually. He’s buried into his blankets so deep you can barely even see him, like a little badger-mole. If it weren’t for his curls sticking out over the top I wouldn’t be sure he was in there.”

Katara stays upright for a second longer, ears straining for the slightest sound of one of their babies or _anybody_ stirring, but all she hears is the family of birds singing in the maple tree leaning over their patio and the faint murmur of the sea a little down the path.

“Spirits.” she murmurs as she lays back down beside her husband in latent state of shock. “Did you put something in their dinner last night?”

“Bold of you to assume that enough of the food ended up in their mouths and not on the table, floor, walls, ceilings or me, for a spike to have worked.” Zuko answers drily.

In the seclusion of their own household, she and Zuko ran a tight(ish) ship. They were at the beck and call of both five children and the entire Fire Nation; the spirits knew they’d never get anything done if they didn’t keep a near-constant handle on things. The same could not be said to the same extent of Sokka and Suki, and certainly not at all of Aang and Toph. They loved when they got together for the holidays but with ten kids under the same roof, all at the age of twelve or under, the personal boundaries of their family unit inevitably broke down into unbridled chaos on every alternate year they held this gathering.

Zuko had been on baby-sitting duty with Aang and Sokka yesterday evening while the mothers had shared an impromptu ‘girls night’ over last minute gift wrapping and a bottle of wine or three.

He looks a broken man.

Katara pats his chest in attempt at sympathy but the tickled smile she can’t quite keep off of her lips undermines the gesture somewhat. “That bad, huh, darling?”

He shakes his head. “Bumi, Tulok and Izumi should never _ever_ have been allowed to exist at the same time. Too much devilry in one place.”

“Wait till Kally gets a bit older and he can join in with them.” she says cheerfully.

The exalted Fire Lord just groans, rolling over to languish on his side.

Katara seizes the chance before her, wrapping her arms around his torso and hauling herself in closer to snuggle into his back, pressing her cheek to the valley of spine between his shoulder blades.

“Merry Christmas, Zuko.” she murmurs. 

“Merry Christmas, Katara.” he murmurs back.

For a moment, they just savour the peace together, Katara allowing the warmth of her husband’s core to wash over her as she listens to the repetitive lull of the waves breaking on the shore, but she can feel the tension lingering in Zuko’s body. He was simply not meant to idle like this, his active mind always sparking his muscles with the order to move, so she isn’t surprised when he eventually breaks the silence with:

“Would I be a bad father if I went and did something to wake them all up?”

Katara can’t deny that a part of her calls for restoring normality to the household, too, but not so much that it drowns out the scarce opportunity presented. 

“Leave them be.” she says, releasing her hold on him to drift her fingers up and down the ridges of his stomach teasingly. “They never sleep in this long. Let’s make the most out of it, hm?”

She takes the initiative when he says nothing in response, shifting her weight and slinging her leg around his, so her body was flat to him, her hips cradled in the small of his back. She leans to press kisses to the soft skin of his arm, working ever so carefully from above the crook of his elbow and up along his bicep. Zuko lays perfectly motionless for her ministrations and a rush of satisfaction floods through her that she could still render him so immobile, but then he turns onto his back once more.

“Katara?”

She rests her chin on his pectoral. “Mm hm?” 

His beautiful eyes spark mischievously as he stares down her, fingers ghosting through the curls of her hair.

“I’m gonna go and wake them up.”

“Don’t you _dare_ -”

He’s already gone, scrabbling out from the bed before she can grab him. He’s chortling like a little child as he scampers away from her reach, snatching his night robe from the back of her vanity chair and whirling it around his shoulders. The parquet wooden beams of the bedroom floor are painfully cold against Katara’s soles as she leaps out from under the covers in pursuit, fumbling around for her own dressing gown. Eventually, her fingertips brush against the furred shoulders of the robe, half under the bed where she’d abandoned it last night. By the time she fastens the belt of the garment and jams her feet into her slippers, Zuko is out of the door in a flurry of red silk. 

“Zuko, no!” she calls after him but she finds herself lost to the same wave of laughter that’s consumed her husband as he runs off, the sound coming from so deep within that her stomach hurts.

She tears down the hallway after him. She’s fast enough that she catches him at the door, but his hand is already on the handle and when she shoves him in a playful tussle, the door swings open and they unexpectedly take a tumble forward, giggling and wrestling with each other like a pair of children.

“Mommy?” Kallik peers out over the edge of his blanket, his curls a wild mess atop his head. He rubs his eyes blearily as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing, but his face brightens when they’re still there. “Daddy?”

The expression on his elder brother’s face, on the other hand, betrays just how near their first child’s teenage years draw - equal parts thunderous and bewildered as he sits up in bed, hands planted into the mattress on either side of him. He reminds Katara so strongly of Zuko as his stare pierces through the hazy grey darkness, inky black hair falling into golden eyes incensed in a semi-glare.

Kaito looks between them incredulously. “What are you _doing_?”

In the corner of her eye, Zuko is clearly busy trying to think of a witty retort but his smaller son spares him from the attempt.

“It’s Christmas Day!” Kallik crows as the realisation hits him. “Has Hoteiosho been?”

“I don’t know, Kally.” Katara smiles at her youngest. “Maybe we should go and see.”

The Crown Prince’s face softens as he gets a grip on what’s happening. Zuko curls his arm around his wife’s waist as their sons scramble out of bed.

“Happy Christmas, boys.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Aunt Katara, Aunt Katara!”

Bumi Beifong barrels across the living room to where his aunt sits by the crackling fireplace, watching over the second generation of their group as they opened their presents. Ursa’s attempts at keeping the mess confined to vague piles disappear as the eldest of the Beifong kids tears a path through the festive chaos, leaving whirlwinds of gift paper and ribbons spinning in his wake like dust devils in the desert.

“Thank you for my drum set, Aunt Katara. I _love_ them. They’re so totally awesome!” he gushes as he skids to a halt just shy of the Fire Lady’s skirts, rocking back and forth on the flat of his feet.

Katara reaches up to ruffle the shock of hair that had given her godson his name. “You’re welcome, squirt.”

On the opposite side of the room, Aang looks as though he’s sucking on a mouthful of lemons as Zuko elbows him from his perch on the arm of the couch, his smug grin so wide it threatened to split his face in two: “Come and say thank you to Uncle Zuko, too.”

“It’s our pleasure, Bumi.” Zuko smiles when the young airbender skipped back over to his father and did as he was bid. “Make sure you play it lots for your dad. Especially when he’s trying to meditate, okay? It’ll help him to get into the zone.”

“Well done, Zuko. Very funny.” Aang deadpans when Bumi bounces off with his new taikos.

“Well,” Zuko shrugs nonchalantly. “After you bought Izumi that lovely trumpet last year and she serenaded us with it night and day for six months straight, we knew we just _had_ to make it up to you somehow.”

“I did warn you that was going to backfire on us, Twinkletoes.” Toph cackles as Tenzin, her youngest child, plays with his father’s beads at her feet.

“Toph, it was _your_ idea!”

Zuko watches with amusement as Aang and Toph argue to shift the blame between each other, fully indulging in the satisfaction of a victory he’d been waiting a year for. On a less vengeful note, he always looks forward to the holidays whether he has comeuppance to deliver or not because it sequesters him away with his family. He’s not the Fire Lord when he’s with them. He’s a multitude of other things instead. In this house, with these people, he’s a friend, an uncle, a son-in-law, a brother-in-law, a nephew and a brother and a son. Most importantly, though, he’s Katara’s husband and their children’s father. He’s reminded of both of those esteemed positions when his eyes catch on Kallik clambering into his mother’s lap for a cuddle, the new thick blanket that Katara had knitted for months on end wrapped around his body like a blue cocoon.

At the side of his mother and baby brother, Kai sits cross-legged and straight-backed. Behind him, his youngest sister Lili and Yuka - their cousin by Sokka and Suki - stand up on a box. The pair of four-year olds carefully brush out his glossy black hair, long enough now that it reached beyond the collar of his shirt. Sufficiently pleased with the readiness of their canvas, Lili reaches down to her present from Katara and Zuko - a white leather case filled with brushes, combs, bands, ribbons, clips and all other manners of tools and ornaments - and fixes her big brother’s hair into a haphazard topknot with a pink silk bow. 

“Pretty.” The chief’s daughter declares as she holds a hand mirror up.

“Thank you, Lili. Thank you, Yuka.” Kai answers with a sincerity that twists Zuko’s heart.

“No, no! Not finished yet!” Lili tells him hurriedly, a little hand holding him in place as she gathered up a selection of clips to continue her masterpiece. “Got to look even prettier before we go to the tea party.”

“And we can do your makeup!” Yuka adds excitedly, holding up the kit of face-paints from her parents.

Kai’s eyes flick from the hoard of stuffed animals ringed around the tea set that Iroh had gifted to Lili, over to his own unopened pile of presents. Both Ursa and Suki notice this and offer themselves up as replacements, showcasing their own hair to try and tempt the girls away, but Kai waves them off good-naturedly, submitting himself to the rest of the girls’ treatment with a patient smile. “Okay. Make me look pretty.”

As the makeover recommences, Zuko’s gaze wanders on to his oldest daughter, laid flat on her stomach with her chin propped up on the heel of her hand besides Tenzin. The rambunctious eleven-year old princess has about as much in common with the shy, owlish four-year old as an elephant mandrill does a weasel mouse. The pair do, however, share a love of all things scholastic and frequently pass the time in each other’s company as they are now: sprawled out on the rug with their noses buried in a book - Izumi deep in the latest volume of _Tales From the Fire Nation_ and Tenzin flipping through the pages of an old Air Nation travel guide that Aang had pieced together from old tomes.

It takes him a few seconds to pick out the only one of his quintet unaccounted for in the packed room. Eventually he locates Bashira, squeezed into an armchair in the corner with Lin, admiring the set of tiny toy soldiers that Toph had fashioned from iron for her daughter. 

Contrary to the unlikely friendship between Izumi and Tenzin, Shira and Lin were birds of a feather, sharing more affinity with each other than they did with any of their own blood siblings. Both were formidable characters - tough, brusque, unequivocal and exceedingly gifted in their respective disciplines - and with only a few short months separating the pair in age, there was no doubt in Zuko’s mind that the bond would last them for the entirety of their lives.

“Shira.” he calls.

The young waterbender wriggles out of the chair and bounds over to him, her black braid swinging side to side in her wake, the tail of her hair curling to the small of her back. She’d grown taller again, he noted as he tucks a loose curl behind her ear, the fur-trimmed hem of her nightgown floating higher up her calves.

“Did you like your new parka? I helped Mom with the sewing.” she asks hopefully.

“I heard.” It was an odd idea really, using needlework to temper Shira’s preference for speed and aggression just enough to teach her the virtues of patience and calm, but the positive effects were self-evident in her flourishing waterbending and sword skills, as well as her neat stitches. “I love it, darling.”

Her blue eyes spark with pride like ice glinting in the sun. “Really?”

“Really.” Zuko smiles, sliding off of the couch arm and onto his feet. “Are you ready to have your present?”

She nods, taking his offered hand.

Across the room, Katara passes Kallik to his grandmother, quietly asking Ursa to keep her eye on the other three, before she stands to join her husband. In the seconds it takes for her to cross over and follow them into the adjacent dining room, Zuko has already retrieved the box from where he’d hidden it last night once the children were asleep - beneath the dresser containing the finer of the royal family’s china, too historic and valuable to be used as anything more than a decoration.

Their daughter is almost vibrating in her seat with excitement as Zuko sets the long, rectangular rosewood box in front of her, along with a small silver key. 

“From Mom and I.”

Shira snatches up the key with presumed eagerness but she slows when she slots it into the lock, looking between her parents tentatively as she turns the fastener round, round, round until the bolts retract with a click and the lid springs open.

The princess is too stunned to even gasp when she sees the pair of broadswords inside.

When Zuko had first set out to teach his daughter, finally caving after the endless badgering Shira had subjected him to since she’d first understood what a sword was, he hadn’t expected this moment to arrive so soon. He’d been eight when he’d gone to Shu Jing to learn from Piandao and nearly nine by the time the master had deemed him ready to forge his own swords. Kai had been even older in reaching that milestone, ten years old when Zuko had first put a metal weapon in his hand. Shira’s innate aptitude for the blade, paired with her characteristic drive, had allowed her to far outpace her father and brother in training. Zuko had been thrilled, especially since his daughter had always exhibited a clear partiality towards the dual dao swords whereas Kai had selected the katana. Their inclinations were accurate to the nature of their respective bending; firebending encouraged the dominance of one, one hand to produce the flame and the other to bend it, whereas water required greater ambidexterity - Zuko is anomalous in that sense. Nonetheless, he had been reluctant to initiate the shift between wood and metal with Shira - she was still only seven, no matter how talented she was - but when she’d landed a blow to the hilt of his blade very nearly strong enough to knock it out of his hand, the moment had arrived of its own accord.

Katara had been privy to all six months of the delicate forging process - unfolding in every scrap of free time that Zuko had had left after his Fire Lord duties - but still she marvels as Shira pulls the swords free, the blades singing a crisp note as they slide from the leather sheath. 

They are as much works of art as they are lethal weapons.

Piandao had been consulted to help find a composition that would better suit Shira’s slighter frame, but other than the lighter steel alloy, the design is largely similar to Zuko’s. The blades are long and sloped, narrower at the base and wider at the point. The same interlocking guards that allow the swords to share a single scabbard sit at the collar of the hafts, just above the cord-bound handles that cant in the opposite direction to the cutting edge. However, where the Fire Lord’s set ends in a straight hilt, Shira’s are differentiated by the addition of a circular pommel into which Zuko had painstakingly engraved a design - the Water Tribe’s moon and waves on one, the crescent flame of the Fire Nation on the other.

Awe has taken Shira’s breath away as she unpairs the blades and holds them in her hands, before she suddenly sets them down on the table and dives at her mother, throwing her arms around her waist and squeezing tight.

“I-, I... _thank you_ , Mama.” Shira chokes.

Katara can see the structure of her reasoning. Zuko might be the Fire Lord to everyone else but in the private realm of their family, with his children, he wasn’t even half so stern. Katara was the stricter parent, the pinnacle of authority and discipline. It made perfect sense that Shira would think Katara had facilitated the giving of this gift.

“You’re welcome, sweetie, but I think your father deserves more of the praise.” she tells her as she pats her daughter’s head. “He’s the one who said you could have them and he made them for you himself.”

As quickly as she came to her mother, Shira flies to Zuko, throwing her arms around his waist.

“Thank you, Papa, thank you. I love them. They’re beautiful.” she murmurs, squeezing her father tight.

“You’ve worked very hard, Shira. You’ve earned it.” Zuko says fondly as she buries her face into his stomach, his fingers brushing over the intricate twists of hair winding together to form her braid. “I’m so proud of you, icicle.”

Zuko has never understood his father and he hadn’t expected clarity to be forthcoming, but comprehension of his own childhood moves even further away when he looks down on his daughter and the joyous little smile illuminating her face.

She lingers with him for a few more seconds before temptation overtakes her and she releases him to return to her gift. She picks up the broadswords with careful reverence, her fists curling around the grips perfectly. It takes her some time to adjust to the unfamiliar feel of metal in her hands - balancing the hilts in her palms to account for the weight difference, then guiding the blades in careful slices up and down and side to side - but eventually she grows comfortable enough to twirl the swords in her hands with confidence.

“Now,” Zuko takes advantage of the juncture and kneels down to her height. “-what have I told you about swords?”

“You’ve told me a lot about swords, Papa.” Shira answers with a playful smirk as her eyes admire the sharpened edge of the fire-emblazoned sword she held with her left. “You’ve been teaching me for two years.”

“Alright, smarty pants, I’ll be more specific for you.” Shira giggles as he tweaks the end of her nose lightly. “What have I told you about _looking after_ swords?”

“That if you take care of them properly, they will serve you for life.” she echoes firmly.

“That’s right.” Zuko says. “If you treat these with respect like I’ve shown you to - choji oiling every week and a polish every fortnight - you’ll still be able to wield them when you’re as old as me. Maybe one day you’ll even get to pass them along to your children and your children will give them to their children.”

“I’ll look after them, I promise.”

“I know you will. You’ve never given me a reason to doubt that, so for now you can be responsible for them.” He hangs the silver keychain around her neck as she locks the guards together and slides the swords into their sheath. “But this is a privilege, not a given, okay? They’re not toys. Except perhaps for your older brother, you mustn’t let anybody else use them, especially not Lili and Kallik. If you break my trust and use them for anything other than training and upkeep, I’ll take them away until such a time you earn them back. Do you understand?”

She nods.

“Good girl.”

The solemnity is quick to disappear. “Can we go and train now, Papa? I want to try them out.”

“Not right now, icicle.” Zuko chuckles. “It’d be rude to run off and leave everyone. We can practice after lunch, though, if you like. Work off all that food.”

“Besides,” Katara says, putting her hand on Shira’s shoulder and steering her towards the adjoining door gently. “You have some other presents to open, too.”

The Fire Nation’s second princess needs no more encouragement, handing over the scabbard to her father and disappearing into the sitting room with one last thanks shouted over her shoulder.

Zuko sidles over to his wife lazily as they watch her go, leaning against the edge of the dining room table beside her.

“I’ve figured out how I’m gonna win at Stackers later.”

Katara groans internally.

The rules to Stackers were rather straight-forward. Each child was attributed a certain number of points dependent on their size and/or weight; one point for the smallest like Kallik and Yuka, and up to five points for the bigger children like Kai and Tulok. The goal was basically for Zuko, Aang and Sokka to get as many of the kids on their body as they physically could - _however_ they could - then stand up for fifteen seconds. Whoever completed that time with all passengers still on board and had the most cumulative points won the game.

Katara had thought the game was stupid enough when Zuko, Sokka and Aang had first invented it, back some years ago when they only had four children between them to work with. Now that the number of available kids had increased to ten, the game was even more ridiculous - and painful; last year Sokka had put his back out something chronic in his pursuit of the win - but they still continued to play every year despite the calamities that occurred every single time. 

She allows herself a sigh out loud. “I know that you’re going to tell me anyway so go ahead and get it over with.”

“Lin and Bumi on each leg, Shira on my back, Tulok on my front, Yuka and Lili hanging from my arms, Kai and Tenzin sat sideways on each shoulder and Kallik on my head.”

Katara doesn’t need to do the math to know that that combination would effectively guarantee Zuko the victory, but she has doubts about the feasibility.

Zuko clearly doesn’t share those doubts as he grins at her, obviously pleased with himself. She just tuts at his antics, rolling her eyes as an illustrative accompaniment. “You’d do well to remember you’re not as young as you used to be, Zuko. If you break something, I am _not_ fixing it for you.” she warned.

He gasps exaggeratedly in feigned hurt. “You wound me, my love. Don’t you want your husband to win the day?”

“I think I’ve made it _very_ clear that I don’t care about your stupid, testosterone-fuelled game.”

He catches her hand in his own as she reaches up with the intention of flicking his forehead and places it against the skin of his chest instead, bared by the open collar of his shirt. She takes up the suggestion to get closer to him, resting her other palm on his shoulder as she shuffles nearer, her hip flush to his.

“Hmph.” he hums as her hand peruses from his shoulder, stroking up his neck before settling on the blemished side of his face, fingers covering his cheek and thumb beneath his chin. “And what game is it _you_ would like to play, Katara?”

She raises an eyebrow as she stretches her thumb to trace his bottom lip lightly. “I was trying to show you earlier before you ran away.”

“Perhaps we could-” Zuko sucks in a breath as she pushes onto his lap. “-pick that up?”

Katara is a fraction of an inch away from his lips when the door bursts open.

“Mommy! Daddy!”

She draws back sharply and slides from her husband’s lap just as their youngest daughter bounds into the room in search of them. If Lili notices what she’s interrupted on some level - or the rosy flush tingeing both her parents’ cheeks - she doesn’t verbalise it, too preoccupied with her news to be distracted.

“What is it, flower?” Katara asks as she smooths her night dress awkwardly.

“Come and see Kai! Come and see!” Lili giggles, her pyjamas rendering her a mauve-coloured blur as she darts in. “Yuka and I made him look all pretty.”

Zuko would have been quite happy to go with her and see what she’d done to her near-teenaged brother anyway, but the four-year old is impatient, grabbing her mother and father’s hands and pulling them forward.

“Katara?”

She looks over at him as Lili drags them back into the fold with her.

“I love our family.”

She smiles.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zuko and Katara being constantly interrupted by their kids when they're trying to catch some alone time is my jam haha. I love all my steambabies but I gotta say... Shira owns my ass, I love her.

**Author's Note:**

> "In the American tradition, Santa Claus is the bearer of gifts for children who have behaved well all throughout the year. The Japanese also have this type of figure. His name is Hoteiosho (ほていおしょ). He’s a buddhist monk, with a large belly and a cloth sack full of toys. He has eyes in the back of his head, which means that he’s able to see the children and how they behave without them knowing. Hoteisosho (ほていおしょ) is one of the seven gods of fortune."


End file.
